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Once more Microsoft releases a free eBook. This time about Azure Web Apps and written by Rick Rainey.

Thee book focuses on providing essential information about developing web applications hosted on Azure Web Apps. It is written with the developer who has experience using Visual Studio and the .NET Framework in mind. If Azure Web Apps is new to you, then this book is for you. If you have experience developing for Azure Web Apps, then this book is for you, too, because there are features and tools discussed in this text that are new to the platform.

The book is organized in four chapters:

Chapter 1, “Microsoft Azure Web Apps”: This chapter starts with an introduction to Azure Resource Groups and App Service Plans and progresses into essential tasks such as creating and configuring a web app. Learn best practices for storing and retrieving app settings and connection strings. Configure deployment slots and set up continuous deployment using Visual Studio Online. Wrap up with a discussion about Role Based Access Control (RBAC) and how you can use it to manage access to your Azure resources.

Chapter 2, “Azure WebJobs”: Learn everything you need to know to build and deploy background processing tasks using Azure WebJobs. You will learn the basics of the WebJobs feature and proceed into a deeper discussion on how to use the WebJobs SDK. You will learn about the Azure WebJobs Dashboard and how the WebJobs SDK enhances the dashboard experience.

Chapter 3, “Scaling Azure Web Apps”: Learn how to scale up and scale out your Azure web app and web jobs. You will learn how to configure Autoscale to scale your web app dynamically based on performance metrics and schedules. See how you can use Azure Traffic Manager to achieve global scale for your web apps.

Chapter 4, “Monitoring and diagnostics”: Learn about the many logging features built into the Azure Web Apps platform and how to configure logging to get the diagnostics data you need to troubleshoot issues. You will learn how to configure storage locations and retention policies for logs, how to view logs in real time using the log streaming service, and even how to debug your web app remotely while it is running in Azure. You will get an introduction to some powerful site extensions you can use to view logs and perform analysis directly from your browser. Finally, you will learn how you can monitor your resource group down to individual resources and how you can use Application Insights to deliver a complete 360-degree view into your application code for monitoring and diagnostic purposes.

For all of you that couldn’t attend Build 2015 and/or Ignite 2015 in the last weeks or couldn't get to all sessions, you can now check all the sessions at Channel9. There is a lot of content to see and maybe you would like to download them to be able to view them offline. To assist you in this task Michel de Rooij had upload a new version of it’s Channel 9 downloader PowerShell script.

In Ignite it has been announced that Microsoft Learning will release a new certification: MCSD: Azure Solutions Architect. This is a MCSD and not a MCSE, mainly because this exams primary validates development and DevOps Skills.

For you to get this brand new certification is necessary to pass the following Azure Exams:

Soon the Microsoft Learning website will be updated with this new MCSD, but you can start right away taking the exams. They are already available! When this new certification gets released, I will update this post with the proper link.